köken: Probably a dialectal variant of Middle Low German ēkel (“disgusting”), from which German Ekel (“loathing, disgust, fastidiousness”). A connection to Proto-Germanic *aikulaz (“fearful”) has been suggested for both words; compare Old English acol (“burdensome, troublesome”), English ache, Galician extern (“to vex”), Dutch akelig (“terrible”). Heikel seems to have arisen out of 16th century Upper…